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Legalism, Sexual Sin, and My Experience with Bill Gothard

When Bill Gothard and I posed in front of the
camera, I had no idea that I was standing next to a sexual predator. I had just
finished two years as a part-time student in Telos Institute International
(founded by Gothard), and it was a time of celebration. Fast forward to today,
where it has become public knowledge that Gothard has been accused dozens of
times over of sexual and emotional harassment. If these accusations are true,
which appears likely, it is a tragic series of events. The amount of pain
caused by this one man’s abuse of power is absolutely staggering.

Even before now, plenty of people have accused members
of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (also founded by Gothard) of legalism
and cultish behavior. I’ve even seen many people link Gothard’s sexual sin with
the doctrines he espouses. I may not be steeped in IBLP culture, but I am familiar enough with it to ask myself
this question: does this devastating news about Bill Gothard nullify my own
experience with his teaching?

You see, I benefitted greatly from IBLP. For the
two years I was enrolled in the Telos Institute, I spent hours each day
saturating my mind with Scripture. I learned helpful principles related to
money management, marriage, and child training. I learned how to grow in
transparency with others and submit to biblical accountability. I learned
beneficial study habits and word study techniques that have helped me in my
perusal of Scripture to this day. Considering the place I was in my spiritual journey,
Telos was just what I needed.

What about the accusations of legalism? Well,
many of them are indeed true. If you’re familiar with IBLP at all, you know a
lot of the teaching material includes detailed lists about what to do in
various circumstances. One such example involves the six basic steps to conquer
impurity. Obviously, those steps didn’t insulate Bill Gothard from the evil in
his own heart.

Now, practically all of the listed steps to
fight impurity are based on biblical wisdom. (You can do much worse than
memorize Romans 6, after all.) But are all these steps—and the order in which
they are arranged—absolutely necessary for fighting lust? No. That goes well
beyond what the Bible teaches.

So yeah, I entered Telos with my eyes wide open.
I knew some of Bill Gothard’s teachings were legalistic. Some could even be
interpreted as humanistic.

What I experienced while enrolled at Telos,
though, was grace upon grace. I may not have agreed with everything I was
taught. Nevertheless, every time I interacted with my professors, whether in
email or in person, I found nothing but gospel-saturated warmth and kindness.

To be clear, I’m not saying any of this to
excuse or condone Bill Gothard’s actions. My desire is that he faces serious
consequences for his crimes. I hope this not only for his many victims but for
his own good as well. It will not do Gothard any good to escape temporal
consequences and be ill prepared for eternal consequences.

It’s almost disheartening, really, to think that
I have practically never been involved with a church or ministry that hasn’t
been rocked by scandal or schism. This isn’t the first time I have seen the
corruption of power and the deceitfulness of sin. And yet, amidst this fallen
world’s countless tragedies, nothing has crippled God in His care for my soul.

So as I mourn over the revelation of Bill
Gothard’s once-secret sins, I can also remain thankful for how God used his
teaching to bless my own life. I needn’t choose between sadness and
gratefulness. These two responses may not be the best bedfellows, but they
aren’t mutually exclusive either.

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performances. Take just one example (or, rather, an example in several parts)
from recent history, all involving a “willing participant.” Actress Margot Robbie recounts
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Your argument robs adult women of
agency because it says outright that they
are not consenting and implies they
cannot consent. It infantilizes adult women and asserts that they can only
be protected by men with a white knight impulse. We’re getting into an area
where women are regarded as little more than sheep, being led by whatever crook
is nearest.
As regular visitors know, over the past few years I have
focused much of my blog’s attention on how the entertainment industry places
pressure on actors to perform nude and/or sex scenes for audiences. It’s a
problem that is at once both tacitly acknowledged and blithely ignored. I have
argued further that those who suffer most under this burden are actresses.
With my emphasis on women, some readers have responded with
major concerns. I am both thankful for and alarmed by this feedback, because
the quoted critique above is not what I have meant to communicate. Not at all. I
offered a …

Let me tell you about a film that’s garnered a lot of
publicity. The story revolves around a wealthy and debonair businessman with
serious control issues. His sexual tastes involve perverse fantasies, but he
gets what he wants because he’s rich, powerful, and handsome. In telling this
story, the movie doesn’t shy away from depictions of the sex act. The audience
is inundated with sex, in fact. The debauchery is enough to make a lot of
people sick, either with revulsion, pleasure, or a mixture of both.

Do you think I’m talking about Fifty Shades of Grey? Actually, I’m referring to The Wolf of Wall Street, which came out on
DVD just last year.
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on the other hand, has been either ignored or condemned. And yet there are some
glaring similarities in how both movies handle sex.
They both employ stylistic techniques that were labeled as hardcore porn just a few decades
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